DANZ QUARTERLY - Issue No 8: July, August, September 2007

Driven by Dance and Dedication
Vivek Kinra – Teacher, Performer, Choreographer and Director of the Mudra Dance Company and NZ Academy of Bharata-Natyam in Wellington

by Tania Kopytko

Vivek Kinra, born in Kanpur, a large city in Northern India, began dancing, or felt himself compelled to dance and move, from a very early age. This despite his family not being involved in dance at all. This was a natural instinct, “as we say, some carry over from a previous life”. Dancing to radio music at home, from around age six, Vivek was also inspired by his next door neighbours, people from the foothills of the Himalayas, who regularly did their folk-dancing at home. So Vivek incorporated some of their movements into his creative dancing. Vivek presented his self-created solo dance pieces at school performances. The school Principal advised Vivek’s father of his son’s talent and that Vivek should be taken to a dance teacher.

From the age of ten Vivek began his dance studies with Guru Shridharan Nair, the resident dance teacher at the School of Bharata-Natyam (Indian Classical) dance, in Kanpur. Vivek became a well known performer in Kanpur. At age sixteen, he decided to pursue fulltime dance and was accepted at the renowned Kalakshetra Academy of Bharata-Natyam in Chennai (Madras), southern India. He studied there fulltime for five years, including Post Graduate studies, also becoming a member of the Kalakshetra Dance Company, performing in China, Russia and all over India. On graduating Vivek became an Academy lecturer.

Vivek describes coming to New Zealand as a pure coincidence. While lecturing at Kalakshetra, an Australian student invited Vivek to Sydney to teach. As a young man wanting to see the world and already a teacher, Vivek decided to take the plunge. On the way to Australia he visited Malaysia and Singapore making important contacts and teaching there. Vivek went twice to Australia, to teach on short trips, returning to India each time and also maintaining the Malaysian and Singapore contacts and teaching.

On his second trip to Sydney, Mr Govan from Wellington invited him to set up a Bharata-Natyam school in Wellington. At that time Vivek knew little about New Zealand apart from the name Sir Edmond Hilary, that it was “a land of sheep and dairy production” and had a cricket team. He agreed to come to New Zealand for two years and either remain himself, or find a suitable replacement teacher/performer for the project after that time. Vivek established the school in March 1990. He liked it here and became a naturalised New Zealander, working diligently towards his ambition to establish a quality Academy of Bharata-Natyam and a performance company, which became Mudra Dance Company. Seventeen years later Vivek is happy with his achievements, but this has come with some positives and some negatives. Compared to India, New Zealand is a small place with a small Indian community. “I came here as a young man of twenty three, I am forty now. So there are some things you don’t think through when you are twenty three, you do things”    There have been times when Vivek has been on career crossroads, particularly as the intricate Bharata-Natyam dance form is embedded in Indian classical or high art and culture.

“For example in 1995 I had to really sit down and think.” At that stage Vivek was aware that because he lived and worked in New Zealand, despite being known and respected by important Bharata-Natyam dance people in India, his opportunities for international performance were slim because of his New Zealand base. At this time he was at his artistic peak.

This is an artistic and career dilemma that many professionals face in their international and local careers, regardless of the dance genre they practice. Vivek acutely felt the pull and divide of dance loyalties. He realised that he would never make a name for himself as a performer in India without living and working there.

“If a French festival was looking for a professional Indian dancer they would never think of inviting someone from New Zealand….I was cut out of all the markets for Bharata-Natyam performance except New Zealand”.

Vivek decided to stay in New Zealand, which was a huge sacrifice on one hand but a dedication to the Wellington Academy and Mudra Dance Company on the other.

Vivek returns to India every year to work with the musicians and researchers at the Kalakshetra school. In this way he is able to prepare the extraordinary rich performances such as the Shree Ram Katha dance-drama performed by Vivek and the Mudra Dance Company last year, featuring four professional dancers from Chennai. Based on the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, Vivek had the work professionally researched, as is the usual professional practice, in order that the epic was told in the most appropriate artistic way through Bharata-Natyam. In this way Vivek exacts the quality required in all aspects of Bharata-Natyam and other Indian dance forms he works in. Vivek is happy with the growth of Kiwi support for Mudra and Bharata-Natyam.

“I can’t ask for more in regards the support here”, which includes continual good support from the New Zealand dance community. In Malaysia and Singapore there are huge South Indian populations with a sophisticated knowledge of Bharata-Natyam. Vivek still regularly visits there, acts as a mentor to teachers and performs with the Amirthanjali Dance Company.

Vivek is now beginning to teach second generation students – children of his first student performers. The biggest dilemma is that his well trained adult performers are also now well educated, working professionals and parents. They have limited time to focus on this exacting dance form. However to Vivek’s delight they returned to Mudra for the important large scale Shree Ram Katha dance-drama in 2006. Vivek’s career compromise makes New Zealand and Wellington the richer.

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